TV Review: SONS OF ANARCHY: Season 6, Episode 13: A Mother’s Work

FX‘s Sons of Anarchy A Mother’s Work TV Show Review. Sons of Anarchy: Season 6, Episode 13: A Mother’s Work was powerful and traumatic. Throughout the last three seasons, audiences had been rooting for Jackson ‘Jax’ Teller (Charlie Hunnam) and Tara Knowles (Maggie Siff) to get away from SAMCRO. Later, they were rooting for Tara to get away. A Mother’s Work illustrated that writer Kurt Sutter is not letting anyone get away from SAMCRO, their criminal associations, or their pasts.

Nero Padilla (Jimmy Smits)’s monologue to Jax was an enlightened and calm way to handle being betrayed. After the shootout over the gun deal, Nero had been through enough with SAMCRO. Seeing him begin to severe ties to SAMCRO through Gemma Teller Morrow (Katey Sagal), a wise first step, had to happen. She was the main reason why he had stuck with The Sons for that long. It was no surprise that Gemma choose The Club over love. That was her default response but I couldn’t believe she could not break the cycle, especially when Nero begged her to run away with her.

Nero’s prophetic words about karma and reaping what you sow to Jax really came how to roost in one of the most graphic ways possible by the end of the episode.

Gemma didn’t just seem high but drunk on marijuana. How is it possible to get that baked? When I remembered what I have heard about the grade of marijuana available in Amsterdam, it became clear.

I never, for a second, thought Tara would be killed. I always thought she was smart enough to get away. She not only got killed, she got stabbed to death in gruesome fashion. It was like a prison shanking. It was like what Otto ‘Big Otto’ Delaney did to Lee Toric’s sister. I felt sorry for Tara as she was getting stabbed to death. I thought somehow she was going to get out of it but she was getting stabbed at the base of the skull so that was a foolish thought.

Tara meeting the lawyer in the park was a joke. If there was any way that SAMCRO would track her down, it would be through known associates e.g. the person shepherding her law enforcement deal. She’d seen how the club worked, how they found people. How could she be that stupid? If she had to meet her lawyer, she should have met with him at an airport, in a lounge on the premises somewhere. That way no guns, no weapons (metal detectors) and plenty of guards if SAMCRO showed themselves plus she could always get on a plane to escape (buy open tickets in advance and wait to the last minute to board). I guess Tara never saw The Saint.

Two questions: when Tara and Roosevelt arrive at Tara and Jax’s home, why did Gemma have the washing machine on? Was it a feint?

The two murders in the third act of A Mother’s Work will obviously have repercussions for Jax and the final season of Sons of Anarchy.

Jax’s dropped gun hadn’t been fired, there’s no gun power residue of his hands, and ballistics won’t be able to match the bullets in Eli Roosevelt (Rockmond Dunbar)’s back with the barrel from Jax’s gun. Jax’s bike is hot but the bodies are cold (it was day time when Tara and Roosevelt were killed. It was night time when Jax got on the scene.).

Will the prosecutor believe Jax? Its fifty-fifty. I think she will charge him with both murders, saying something along the lines that he flew into a rage, killed them both, and then regretted it immediately afterward.

Juan Carlos ‘Juice’ Ortiz (Theo Rossi) certainly stepped up. I was surprised he was able to think so quickly in the situation. The fact the Tara’s murder weapon is not present will work in Jax’s favor. What Juice did for Gemma will work in his favor with SAMCRO.

That Homeless Woman (Olivia Burnette) is a harbinger of things to come (she has to be). It can not be a coincidence that she appears in the very spot where Juice was deposing of the murder evidence. My guess is that she finds some of the evidence with Tara’s blood and Gemma’s fingerprints on them and places it in her cart. How that plays out is anybody’s guess (she gets hit by a car, her cart goes flying, the police find the bloody evidence, and run tests on them).

One of the reasons why Sons of Anarchy has remained on the air for six years and why FX rewarded the show with an extra half an hour per episode this season (something I hope happens with HBO’s Game of Thrones), is that the show’s quality has not only remained consistent but has gotten better and the show never fails to surprise.